What's NEW With The Nuggets So Far

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1:06The nuggets add more point guard depth as a sign Ryan Nemhard. I'll tell you why I'm not the biggest fan of the decision because of who's gone and who remains. Plus why Marvin Bagley will not play power forward this season, no matter how much a lot of folks think it's a good idea. And we'll talk about the way that Denver will crash the offensive boards. Day two of training camp on Lockdown Nuggets. You are Lockdown Nuggets. Your daily Denver Nuggets podcast. Part of the Lockdown podcast network. Your team every day. Welcome to Lockdown Nuggets. Your daily Denver Nuggets podcast part of the Lockdown podcast network. Your team every day. Thanks for joining us and make it as part of your day. I appreciate you guys being with us all throughout the week as we cover Denver Nuggets training camp from start to finish. Day two is in the books up in Boulder and early this afternoon. We were there after practice ended to talk with staff and coaches and players. We talked to Marvin Bagley.

2:11Today we talked to Jamal Murray today. We talked to David Adelman and the responses were all pretty interested. I think it's pretty great in terms of where the vibes are at. I will tell you that like, look, vibes are always good in preseason. It's if things are bad in pre and then like there are I know times when things have been bad in preseason. But it is better to have good vibes than bad is what I will say. Like it's just better to have everybody to have a good place. So everything has been pretty positive. So far in training camp, Adelman really spoke highly today of the energy and the gym, which I think it actually does matter and everybody's really kind of like, it's a bunch of good guys. And I think that's been a positive thing for everybody there. We will talk today about the way Denver is going to crash the office of glass. I talked about that a little bit after media day. I want to talk more about it because we got more details on that today. I came in with the plan to ask about it and then somebody else asked questions. We got like three questions on it.

3:12Got some good details on it to kind of explain it why it will help the defense crashing the offensive glass, which is kind of a weird. Inverse thing. We'll talk about Marvin Bagley as well. But we'll start today with the news. The Denver nuggets have signed Ryan Nemhard to a two-week contract. KJ Simpson has been waived. He is no longer with the nuggets, which. You know, I'll be like real here is like. I think it's crappy to have brought KJ in last year to have kept him and then right before he's going to have a chance to play in front of in Boulder. As I see you got not I didn't like that optics of that. I get it because it's like, you know, not Nemhard's going to sign with somebody else if you don't get him into kind of like he's getting to camp and can't risk it. I get it. You want him. It's just also like it's Ryan Nemhard. It's like at the end of it is Ryan Nemhard. I'm okay with this move. I'm not negative on this move.

4:15There are things about it that I'm not high on. Among them is. I feel like and at first when people were like, well, it's just Tias. And I was like, well, no, like Nemhard's not really Tias. Tias is the floor general and Nemhard's more of like a fire bug point guard. Which when I say fire bug, I mean like little guy that skirts in out a pick and roll situation and kind of slips to the basket and slips up shots. Right. And so Tias is more of like a floor general that's going to be like set the court, can run pick and roll. But primarily is like can make the entry pass, move to the corner. He has been able to shoot earlier in his career. He has not been able to shoot the last two years. That's a problem if he doesn't get back to where he was before. I've talked about this. That's not going to work. The problem is just like there's nothing you can really identify from a metric standpoint.

5:15With Nemhard that you're like, he's really good at. If you want to know what Ryan Nemhard is really good at, he's really good at scoring on the Kola Yokish when Yokish doesn't put a hand up. Like this to be, I cannot help but feel like the nugget side the guy who had his career high. And I'm always against those kind of moves where it's like, look, you can't go out. You can't be influenced by how good a guy looked against you. Even if you're like, yeah, but we understand like our team. And so we understand what he's good at. And Nemhard does have value. He did have games for the maps last year. He did have a little stretch where he was playing well. But eventually he was out of the rotation too. Like think about that. As well as he played for a stretch of time, he still fell out of the rotation. My bar here is very low for Ryan Nemhard. Now, if the simple answer is, look, we have one backup point guard. Entias Jones, the team likes Ryan Nemhard more than KJ Simpson, who brings a little bit more speed and athleticism. Okay. You duplicate Tias with another similar type of ball handling point guard.

6:18Who if Jamal, like, let's say Jamal misses a game for rest or injury or a personal matter, right? You're starting point guard. It's probably going to be tomorrow to Rosen. But now it's like, if you need a point guard, you have Tias Jones or you're Ryan Nemhard. It's fine. I like it's fine. Nemhard last season on catch and shoots. He shot 35% on catch and shoots, including a whopping 28% when guarded last season on 29 attempts. His jump shot was rated average. His pick and roll play was rated as below average. They scored 0.761. He scored 0.761 as a primary ball handler in pick and roll situations. Last year with the Dallas Mavericks. Not great. Not terrific. Vick asked, would you rather have Dillingham or Nemhard? That's a real Sophie's choice. Probably Nemhard, you know, just I think based off of Nemhard, I think, is small and slippery. And I think that's a good idea.

7:19I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. Nemhard, I think, is small and slippery. And Dillingham is a little bit longer. And I think that this game is a little bit more honestly predictable. Ryan can be like really up and through everything. Vick knows, like, the maps were bad. Yes, I always have this kind of problem of the maps, you know, you can't blame Ryan. Nemhard, the Mavericks were really bad last year. Yeah, but like Ryan, Nemhard is part of the reason the maps were bad. But he's not not a reason that the maps were bad. Right? Cooper Flag is like not a reason the maps were bad last year. Even though like he's a rookie and still makes mistakes. Like PJ Washington was not a reason the maps were bad last year. Yeah, I'm kind of with Mac, man. I still take Gabe Vincent. He's not he, but he's a smart services. It was a serviceable real NBA defender. I kind of agree. But I'm going to imagine that that I think Gabe probably recognized that wherever he lands. That he's probably going to have a better chance to get bigger minutes than in Denver

8:20or have a better opportunity long term. I don't think Gabe saw a future there, especially with the financial stuff to be able to like, Nemhard can come here with where he's at in his career and carve out like a little role and make some money. Right? Gabe's looking for like a long term solution. And I think he's got other options on the table. And if not, there will be another one because we will have injuries over the next month from around the league. So I think it's kind of there. Max is Matt. He can't blame Ryan. The maps were kind of a mess. He was just a rookie thrown into that mess. Well, you know, look, he, I hear you. You know, he's a rookie. I get it. But also just like, again, if you have the ball in your hands and the results are bad, like Ryan, there was a reason he's still out of the rotation. There's all I'm saying, you know. Now, baby comes in and lights it up. Maybe he's going to be good. Maybe he's going to be great. That can definitely happen.

9:21He's, he's, I think these guys, if given the right opportunity and the right situation, can make it work. I, I don't know that it's good to have Tias Jones on a full deal and Ryan Nemhard on a two way. But what I really kind of think here to be perfectly honest with you is, I don't think that the second rounders should be on deals for the team. I think they should be in the G league for a year and then be, you know, then added to a two way. I just have a hard time imagining that people are jumping out of their seats to go get driving Brazil or Bryce Hopkins. And it's not that those guys can't be good. But like David Allman today talked about those two and literally said, you know, if we were going to talk about what those guys have to catch up on, I would take me 25 minutes. They're just not going to play. Like this team is operating at a level of one of the things about the nuggets is that for whatever you think about their play or how good they are or whatever else, they do execute on a level that is higher than about, I would say, 80% of the league.

10:21And you have to be able to understand what they're doing. You can beat them with athleticism and shooting because it's basketball. If you run fast and shoot well on a night, you can beat them, right? In a non-playoff environment. But like they operate on a pretty high level from an IQ standpoint. And that takes a large knowledge base to understand the things that are happening. And I just don't think Bryce and Trevin are there nor do I think they will be there by the end of the season. So they're not going to be there by the end of the season. I am just kind of like, all right, couldn't you have had Tias and Nemhard and Gabe Vincent or Tias and Nemhard and someone else? Like, isn't that like, wouldn't these spots be better attributed to people that are actually going to play this? I am just of the point of basically, I am only good with one roster spot for a player who is not planning on playing this season for the nuggets. That's it. You're carrying 14 guys. You're not even carrying 15. You don't want to pay the luxury tax on it. Okay. So why did you trade a first round pick into two second rounders and then have two guys that are not going to play this season? Because now you have this bind where it's like,

11:23hey, maybe KJ would have been better. Maybe KJ speed and potential for defense and being pesky. I think that's, I just, I feel like it's better to have those kind of options. Like, I would rather have Ryan Nemhard than I would rather have Trevin Brazil or Bryce Hopkins currently signed to a contract, which is not that like, Bryce Hopkins or Trevin Brazil can't be better than Ryan Nemhard. They obviously can. The bars low and those guys are talented. They have so much athleticism. But I have zero reason to believe that that's going to happen this year for them. So I just, I think that the way that this kind of the back end of the roster from a two-way standpoint, giving Tyus a full contract and the rookies, those are the ones that I have some qualms about. Coming up, Marvin Bagley's going to play the back up five and Adam David Adamson was pretty clear about it. I don't love that decision, but it does mean something positive for a

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14:35Back here on Lockdown Nuggets. I'm joining us and Megan is part of your day. Appreciate you guys being with us. Okay. So today, David Adelman was asked pretty directly about what he sees Marvin Bagley's role in this roster as being. And he said he's a backup five. And he was like, you know, in the pinch, he can definitely play the four. But we're going to need him at backup five. And that's really where I see his role. Don't love this. I don't love this. So the reason I don't like it is what's on this with Ryan? Let's let's pencil and Joker for 32 minutes of game. Okay. That's under 33. He doesn't get up into 34 30. So X range. He'll play 34 to 36 against big opponents. Like opening night, Joker's going to play like 35. That's what they always do is they show up and they try and win that first game out of the game versus the big opponent. And they burn the jets a little bit. So let's put him at 32 minutes. That 16 minutes a half that gets you eight minutes

15:43for him to play each half. Marvin Bagley, that is at the five. That max is about at 16 minutes if he's only playing at the five. Right. If he's playing at the five only, that means the most that he's probably going to play is going to be 16 minutes. The second unit would have to be outrageously good for Joker to be able to sit longer than that, which I just don't know that that's possible. If it is and Joker can play 30 minutes, her aza, that's awesome. That's amazing. What a great outcome. Right. And then he can take up more towards, you know, if if Joker's playing 30 minutes and Marvin gets up to 18, terrific. That's awesome. I think that you can play Marvin Bagley 20 minutes. I think you can use him and bring him in at the power forward spot next to Yokech play him to end the half. Have him transition when Joker goes out into the five spot. Play at the five. Play two minutes with Joker when he comes back in and then go to the bench. I think that's a perfectly fine rotation for Bagley, who's young and athletic and do all these things. One of the reasons I think that Bagley wasn't

16:46mentioned on the first day was honestly that Bagley was winded. He talked about the like David Adelman was like I think the altitude got to a couple guys yesterday that were new. I think Marvin was one of them and he was awesome today. He said Marvin was flying up and down the court. You know, I played him. He said he played his head with his head above the rim the entire day. And Marvin's got that type of athleticism. A big part of this for me is the dunker spot. So last year, the reason one of the reasons why Swipe was so just screaming his head off about the small ball lineups is if you're playing smalls, which they kind of had to because of where the injuries were to the roster and how it was constructed. One of the guards wound up playing dunker spot. So it's Christian or Bruce down there and you're not a dunk threat. If you're a guard, you're not a floater threat. You're not a duck in threat. You're playing in the dunker and you can't dunk. That's a problem. Right. They have a lot more guys that can do this, but a great guy to do that is Marvin Bagley. Now Bagley can play the dunker spot in the bench unit at five. Right. You run a Demar

17:51Derozen with either Aaron Gordon, Cam Johnson or Dero on Holms, Pick and Roll downhill. They put two on ball and now you've got Marvin in the dunker spot to be able to take advantage of that on a cut. That's great. I'm just saying if you're trying to tell me about who's a perfect replacement for dunker spot positioning, strength and finishing to replace AG. He can't replace him from a defensive perspective. He can't replace him from a playmaking perspective. He can't replace him from a shooting perspective. But by God, Marvin Bagley and the dunker spot is awesome. I've watched all of his clips on cuts last year. Two step, two step dunk immediate explosion. His baseline floater, Chef's kiss. It's great. He is one of the best floaters for bigs, a backup biggs that you're going to find in the league. So being able to kind of do this, but Brazil is not better. Just like let's just be very clear on this. Brazil does not know what he's doing yet. You have to learn the timing and spacing and understanding of the concepts of an NBA set to understand how to play this role. So if Bagley's playing five, that means your backup four is only Spencer. Okay. If AG sits,

18:55which he's going to this season, then he slides into the starting spot and now drawn homes who I'll get to in a second is your backup four. I don't mind this conceptually because I really like Spencer Jones, but my problem is that I don't like Spencer in the dunker spot because he doesn't have that explosive step. Spencer is not a guy that like can catch the lob and throw it down. He's not a guy that can catch the ball. One dribble pop up and dunk it. His baseline floater, not as good. I love all the other stuff about Spencer. I'm a huge Spencer. I was a big guy from day one last year talking about Spencer Jones. Okay. Who's apparently having a great camp again. Okay. Guy can he is a great shooter. I do not care about his form. He's a great shooter. He's got good feel. He's got good touch. He makes both hustle plays and IQ plays. Spencer is invaluable in terms of what he brings to this team for the money that he's being paid. He is so good in so many areas that they need. But the dunker spot in particular is a struggle and that's a huge part of their system, which Adelman talked about today. He was like, we can't really change it because if

19:57you change the spacing, everything about our entire offensive scheme gets messed up. Well, now your options are only Spencer Jones and Doron Holmes if Brazil and Hopkins are out of the out of the book here and some people think Hopkins is a three and that's fine. If Brazil's out, you're down really and like, let's be honest, he's not in this conversation either. So now we're down to Doron. Okay. And that's the winner here. That's the benefit here is that everybody that's like, I really like Doron Holmes. He could spread the floor. He seems like a smart guy. He's so athletic or he's so big at least. This is great. Doron's added a lot of muscle and size and if he can capability fill in that dunker spot, if he looks like he's like on it in terms of catches and timing and spacing and all of the things that that position requires, it's going to be great for Doron and that's going to be a way for him to get more floor time. And I'm all for that. That's great. I'm just saying in a pinch, if I need a dunker spot replacement for Aaron Gordon and I look on the nuggets roster, my first answer is Marvin Bagley. So not playing him at the fore next to Yokehch

20:59confuses me because of the the lethality that putting a capable finisher at the dunker spot does for the nugget system. It fundamentally changes everything. As much as I've criticized, Nicole Yokehch for how he played in that first round series, if you have a healthy Aaron Gordon, that series winds up different in large part because they can't guard two on two with Aaron in the dunker spot. It messes with everything. They have to they have to account for Aaron beating his man. It's an important position and I'm just a little bit worried about it, but I do think this opens up a lot more opportunity for Doron Holmes. If Marvin Bagley is going to be full time backup five, then Doron Holmes is going to get a lot of time at the fore. And I personally just think that it can be interchangeable. I think you can run a backup unit of Spencer Jones and Marvin Bagley. If it is a pick and pop big, right? Somebody's slipper or if it's a big coming off that's staggering with the second unit, if it's subonus, but Spencer Jones on him, Spencer's a rock in terms of

22:02strength. The bonus is really strong, but the bonus is like Spencer's really strong. And he's smart and he can guard in space and have Marvin then guard whoever the non-threat shooter is. And he can help off and zone up. But it's really important that that position gets covered effectively. Beable also says I think Brazil plays more than Doron. I am telling you, today, today, David Adelman was like, there it is. Look, I can be wrong. I always say I can be wrong. I'm wrong a lot. And I try and own it when I am. I do not think Trevin, Brazil or Bryce Hopkins are playing this year in Denver, except in garbage time mop up when they happen to be up there. They're not down in G league. Like straight up. Brazil is really exciting from an athlete as a perspective, but there's just a lot more to the game than that. Okay. Coming up, we're going to

23:02talk about the defense and the way the Denver is going to crash the glass and how that's going to impact the defense. We're going to talk more about that concept and what the nuggets are adding here on locked on nuggets. For the first time ever in the US, the best U23 wrestlers in the world descend on Las Vegas for the 2026 galaxy, you 23 world wrestling championships at the UNLV Thomas and Max Center from October 12 to the 18. Don't miss your opportunity to see team USA's wrestlers battle for gold on the world stage right here in the United States. Tickets are on sale at UNLVtickets.com. Get 20% off by using code team USA. Back here on locked on nuggets. Thanks for joining us and making us part of your day. Appreciate you guys being with us. Okay. So on media day, I noted that Adam and mentioned crashing the glasses

24:03as an attempt to help with the defense. And I'm always a big proponent of this. And what we're talking about here is if they have to account for you crashing the glass, they can't get the ball up the floor as fast. If they can't get the ball up the floor as fast, they can't get into their sets as fast. If they can't get into their sets as fast, they can't get to their second set if you put it off the first action as well. It means that they have less time to get through two, three, four actions. It reduces the amount of time that you have to defend in the half court. When we talked about this last season with the fact that, you know, from Adam's perspective, his one of the things from his very tense exit interview was he talked about how, look, we would actually play pretty good defense for 18 seconds, but our last four seconds, we would be terrible. We'd have so many breakdowns. You know, you solve that is you just chop off the last four seconds of the clock. I'm going to put the link in the episode description. Kaitlyn Cooper talked about this on basketball. She wrote, and there was an article last year on the Athletic by Zach

25:06Harper about Mike Brown bringing this over from the Nigerian team as well. This has been big in Europe as David Adelman mentioned today. There's a concept called tagging out, okay? And it's a little bit different than just the traditional kind of concepts of offensive rebounding. What I'm about to tell you is what I know to be the best mind best knowledge of the situation. And that is from a dude that is sitting here in his office recording and not being paid to coach or talk bass like play basketball. Okay? But this is my best understanding of it because I think these details are really interesting. So from an offensive rebounding perspective, you occupy a space, okay? The balls on the right side and a corner shot goes up where a baseline jumper goes up. The most likely place for that ball to land is on the far side on the opposite baseline. It bounces it either clears it and is an air ball bounces off the or bounces off the backboard or not backboard the back of the rim and then goes the other way, etc. So you're occupying a space. What this tagging up principle calls for is instead of that, you're actually tagging a man. So let's say that that Christian Brown is assigned

26:11on deer and fox when they're facing the spurs lineup that's got a bunch of guards and Christians assigned to deer and fox. Okay? Ball goes up on offense. Christian Brown goes down and he actually gets behind deer and fox and I don't know if they're going to use these principles exactly. But he finds deer and fox and he's near him and he's boxing out deer and fox to try and get the offensive rebound. There are two scenarios that can happen if the ball goes towards fox. One, Christian beats him for the offensive rebound. You retain possession and you win the possession game and every time that they don't get the ball and you have it, that's a win because of how good Denver's offense is. Two, fox gets the ball and Christian is right there with the ability to swipe and contest at it on the move. He's also able to guard him and shift him away from the sideline. If you watch 80% of NBA sets, what you're going to see is the ball handler is going to run to one position across half court on one side of the court or the other top of the bottom, right? Right or left side. They're very rarely in the middle. They will then if the primary ball handler

27:15comes up off a screen to get him separation, then he will catch it in the middle and then operate in the middle, pick a roll or he'll catch it. He'll bring it up and then go into the middle. But this usually started on one side or the other. If you're guarding them full court off of that catch and all your job is don't let them get there, just mess with them. It takes time off the clock and it drags their efficiency down. You don't get a transition attack. You don't get a head of steam to attack downhill. You don't have these kind of issues. It takes what is one of the nuggets, biggest weaknesses. Their inability to contain straight line drives and it reduces the odds of that happening. So that to me, I think is like a huge factor. Now, I don't know if this is going to work. You can do this. You can crash and every team does this where it's like how many do you crash? Do you crash one and then get four back? Two, three back. What I think probably happens, I think

28:20Denver probably crashes three. I think Joker's already down there because he's an amazing offensive rebounder. I think AG crashes or the power forward that's either drawn homes or Spencer Jones crashes. Maybe Julian Strouder if he's in that guard unit and Spencer gets back, we could see that happening. And then Christian Brown. And you have three crashing two getting back. And so you have two guys back in transition. The risk here is it gets broken. So if Fox gets the ball and Christian swipes and reaches for it and misses and Fox turns the corner and is up court, now you're unbalanced. And the nuggets are toast. You also have to have a real commitment here from the guys that are physically able to do this. Like I don't expect you all Murray to do this. I don't expect high as Jones to do this. I don't expect Julian Strouder is a really good rebounder. So I would be surprised if Julian did it. Julian was actually credited today by David Adelman for specifically like doing these principles well where he went for it and like contested it and then immediately sprinted back to recover because like that's the counter here is you're going to do this. You can't like miss and then be like, ah, shucks because now they're up the court and they're

29:24unbalanced and they got five on four. Um, back to man. It's a bag with two right. Yeah, back up five. So the center's going to crash. I think regardless. So I think that that's like very good. So Ipa apparently has predicted a top nine defense with this team. What do you think? People all shake down says I think that the absolute peak the nuggets can get to is 14. That's like if you get three point shooting luck and you get lots of help from A.G. And a lot of things go right schematically. You could be 14. I think hoping for 18 is a good like start there. Let's just don't be at top a bottom 10 team in the NBA defense. Start there and you can work backwards from all of that. Okay. That's the nerdy x is no stuff. Some other notes from practice. I mentioned Marvin Bagley. Look great today. Adam thankfully asked Alpha Diallo. I have been trying not to ask about Alpha Diallo because I am of the that's like my guide for this season. And I don't want to try and force it.

30:29I'm not trying to make flesh happen. So I'm trying not to like force the issue with Alpha Diallo. But he did say he said that guy can guard and you can't screen him. And like that's all stuff that I've I've really found in the work that I've done on him. And I've been I had I swear to God this happened. I had a 40 minute breakdown that got killed in my video editor. The file got corrupted. So I have to start again on Diallo, which makes me so sad. But we'll actually have probably coverage of him from the preseason that I can talk about. The things I can tell you about Alpha Diallo when I watch him are what's great about Diallo. He is not a thump thump the floor. Oh, I'm so intense. Look at me. Look at how physical I am. Super Fowley defender. That's not who he is. He's not like aggro. He's not like because those guys usually aren't actually good. They're just making up for it with high intensity. And it's good. Like high intensity matters at some times. But what you actually want is you want capability without having to overextend. And Diallo.

31:34I watched him consistently make multiple rotations. He would be it was crazy because it was like he would switch and then shut down a drive and then call out an assignment and and make a close out. And then as he closes out, the guy gets a step on him and he recovers and stays lateral. His ability to make multiple defensive plays on on possessions. You guys haven't seen a lot of that endeavor over the years. He has the ability to make multiple defensive rotations on every single sequence and have it not be like a he's forced to. It's like, oh no, he just like contained it. He just contained three drives on one possession. It's really good. I mean, honey says hard to say without much sample size. No, I mean, look, I watched every possession from him from Monaco last year. Like I watched every position from him from Monaco. Like it was not a small amount of clips. He's good. I grew a my I grew a migra says is he better than Casey Pete? No. Casey P's literally one of the

32:36the best guys I've ever seen. Navigating screens in the NBA. I don't know that 2022, 2020 to 2023, KCP is legitimately one of the best screen defenders. I think I've seen like he's just insane. He was so slithery while also being physical and disruptive. It was just crazy. He was so good at like, this is a weird thing to say, but like his hips were nuts. Adam and also said that on offense, he said this about Diallo and it's exactly what I wanted to hear. He said, much like Spencer Jones, he just kind of knows where to be. Thank you. Yes. A high IQ defender who doesn't get in the way and will finish plays when called upon. That's it. Right. Can't whip more exciting. And I think the nuggets might need that. They might need like a game breaker athletic force who could just like you know what? Can't whip more had 28 points off the bench. They won that game because can't whip more went nuts for a two way. Go for it. Take a shot. But if you're trying to build a defensive

33:38lineup, you're best bet for getting a defensive lineup as a guy like Spencer Jones and Alpha Diallo. Guys that understand how to space around the more talented players won't get in the way, but the other guys are not going to be annoyed with like, why are you over there? What are you doing over there? No, you're not supposed to be there. Go over here. Not to name names. Certain people that have played here in the past. So like, I think that that's like I think it's a really a really optimistic I'm just optimistic about Diallo and I was glad to hear that he had a good day of practice. Jamal talked, Jamal was funny, Jamal was still messing with everybody, Jamal was not serious. Jamal was in a good mood, which I think is good. He did say he was like, I have to hate y'all a little bit. And you heard me, if you listen to the video, you'll hear me very quietly say, so much though, is that you know? And he was like, he's like, I'm sure the feelings mutual and I was like, I'm not really, you know, and then he walks off and like all of us were like, I'll, you know, after he said, I have to hate y'all a little bit. All of us were like a little bit,

34:40a little bit, but it's fine. Adam and you know, DMVR talked about this today. I was watching Adam's show before I came on and Adam was talking about and the votes said this too. I thought the votes first one to say it and he's absolutely right. If you're wondering like, what is impressive about David Adelman? Because right now everybody's so low on him after the Playoff series, right? And you're low on on after media day, which again, I just think like somebody in the org needed to be like, hey, just say it was on X, or the way RC's Nana was unacceptable. That's it. It's all you got to say. You say that and everybody can move on, but he doubled down. But you get why Adam is so highly regarded when you hear him in these conversations. Like when we actually get to talk about basketball stuff and Adam and I wouldn't say we have a relationship because I don't get to talk to the coaches one on one anymore. Like I used to, when back before all the media rules and like this new podium thing where everybody does a podium. But the interactions I've had with Adam in press conferences, he's more amenable to my kind of

35:41questions because he wants to talk ball. Like he wants to talk strategy and that's the stuff that I'm interested in because I'm a nerd, right? But you see like you see how Adam and is as a communicator for talking about the importance of these things and not getting so hyper detailed on them because like Jamal, I think would tell you like a lot of stuff is like, look man, you can have all the schemes and details you want. But if you don't play with effort, force, and energy, if you don't bring it, it's not going to matter. And he's right. Like he's right. And if you're not able to do things like today, I forget what I asked, but I was asking Jamal about the principles, I think it's about the offensive rebound and I was asking about the principles, oh no, I was asking about the ball handling. You know, because I was asking him about like, what's the challenge for getting an offense to kind of let go of the ball? And he was like, they have to be able to handle, like you just have to be able to do it. He's like, if I feel like I can dunk, I'm not going to dunk. And what I think was interesting, I didn't really have a time to get into it with him.

36:44I would have liked to have asked as a follow up about how much of this is about the players, confidence in themselves and what they can do. And how much of it is about the two guys on the team, the stars and their confidence? Because like, I wonder about this. Do Jamal and Joker dominate the ball because their other guys are like, I don't want to, you got it guys. Or the coaches are like, no, no, no, you don't touch the ball. You give it to Nicola and Jamal. Or is it Jamal and Nicola being like, look man, we can't screw up here. Give me the ball. And I will just handle this because I'm just like, whatever it's going to take, they have to diversify this offense. And I even, I'm somebody who believes in Adam and point of there being the number one offense last year. I don't think that was smoking mirrors. They were that good last year offensively. Like it was sick, how good they were, especially with the injuries and everything else. For them to have been number one with the amount of personnel missing, tells you how good the offense can be. But you still need, I just

37:48think you need more variety in order to be individual matchups. And that's it. All right. Let's go and do it for a lot of time now because I appreciate you guys being with us. We'll have more tomorrow from tomorrow's practice. We'll get you caught up on that. It should be 230 with Ryan and Swypa here for boom and gloom tomorrow. On the channel, I appreciate you guys being with us. We'll see you guys again next time on Lockdown Nuggets. Alpha Diallo season, baby. You're so how Honda dealers are honored to help the community. Our program started the first deaf and hard of hearing football team of its kind in our league. The helpful so Cal Honda dealer surprised us with brand new uniforms and giving our athletes more than just jerseys a community investing in their program. And we want to help you too with 1.99% APR on a 2026 Rigeline for well qualified buyers at your so Cal Honda dealers. I'm pro football, a whole of famous Brian Dawkins. And I lived for a long time with something I did not

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